Bone-Chilling Accounts Of The Ramjas Protests Show The ABVP Attack Was Intentional, If Not Planned

On 22nd February 2017, lines were crossed, voices were hushed and the liberties of a nation were shaken up. A peaceful protest that was meant to be nothing but healthy dialogue and debate went horribly wrong at an institution of education. Violence prevailed; as it always does with the ABVP. And while there is a whole lot that is already going around the newspapers, the broadcast channels, as well as the internet, here are four bone-chilling accounts of what went on at the Ramjas College protests that went on way beyond just the college premises. What you realize from all the accounts is one thing: The damage was intentional; if not planned.

Professor Asha (name changed), Kirori Mal College

"We were called for an open protest and what I saw was a mix of organizational students as well as students who didn’t belong to any political parties as such. We saw cops and some ABVP students—while it is difficult to tell just from looks whether or not someone belongs to ABVP, there were some prominent faces from the organization who we know are from ABVP.

The police were trying to control the crowd that was gathering outside. When we entered the hall, there was a sea of people who looked like students. Some were saying “Protest is our right.” The other goons said, “You will not be allowed to protest.” They were running after the students and beating them up. The principle tried to control the situation; but, he was weakened by the enormity of the whole situation. They had only asked for the right to have a free-willing discussion and obviously, once the goons began attacking them, they didn’t back down either.

When I came outside I couldn’t get back in. They had shut the college gates till 4:30pm. The rest of us were outside, telling the police that they could not keep the students locked inside like that. The ABVP guys then, started pushing us and throwing stones at us. In the images, there seems to be a tussle going on. But, really there was no tussle; it was just the ABVP guys pushing us, hitting, kicking and abusing us. They got their female cadres to do all of that to us. They did not stop once and began to push and throw thing and abuse us.

I have been here for almost 2 decades now and I have never seen a protest stoop to this level. This was a completely different generation of goons. This seemed like an organized plan. The excuse of stopping an Umar Khalid or a Shehla Rashid was just a cover up. The police was on their side and they only tried to minimize the damage; not stop it. In fact, after a while the police surrounded us on both sides and suddenly we were surrounded by ABVP on all four sides. Then, they started pelting stones at us, as well as huge chunks of cements that had been taken from broken walls. They even brought out metal wrenches to hurl at us.

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A student (well known) had been standing and watching what was happening, from a distance. Someone attacked him from behind. He had been hit with a sharp object from behind, on the head and he fell off the pavement and onto the road. When I went over and saw, he had been bleeding from behind his head and had a cut that was at least 4 inches apart.

It’s not about one or two professors, it’s about the political groups proclaiming that they would stand against anything and anyone who defied “our idea of India”. Right now there is too much happening and I have no hopes from the government. The police are just the apparatus.

Later on, I tried to help two injured students to a hospital but we were chased down by 20 of the goons who managed to get hold of the autorickshaw. And when I tried to ask for help from the police, they instead, retorted by saying, “Aap logon ko na Pakistan ya Bangladesh mein hona chahiye”. Another female cop even said, “Abhi aapko dar lag raha hai, naare lagate waqt darr nahi laga tha?”

Professor Bhawna (name changed), Professor, Ramjas College

“The protest was not organized by the college; but by the AISA. It was organized against the violence ABVP showed while protesting against Umar Khalid and Shehla Rashid. They wanted to start the protest outside of the college. IDs were checked time and again and yet, people got inside. There were about 250 police deployed for that particular day. But, suddenly at around 1pm, they started to beat up the people instead. All 250 of them came and began beating up the teachers and students alike. It was bad! Usually during such protests, teachers are the ones who can intervene and stop the protests. But this time, even the teachers were targeted. Trust was broken. There was death in their eyes. They meant to harm and hurt us. The police could have easily broken it up by calling for bused, doing a lathi charge and stopping it once and for all. But, they didn’t.

About 60 odd students were holed up inside the college, sitting in a circle, along with the teachers and they tried singing peaceful songs to distract themselves from the tension as the policemen rounded them up. But these people hurled chairs at them when they did that. They just entered our classrooms dictating terms on what to teach; that’s not a university.

It’s not about nationalism or anti-nationalism. It’s about universities; the right to education; the students and being able to give them an education the right way. The only way for them to shut anything down has always been violence. Even when the principle was ready to talk to them they were jostling him.

Now, they’ve begun singling out teachers for speaking up. They’re a bunch of hooligans and their idea of democracy is majority. Might is right.”

Vaishnavi Bhargava (name changed), Alumni, Delhi School of Economics

“I reached at around 1:30pm outside Ramjas and got to know that ABVP were already beating up people inside. I heard someone saying they were vying for Mukul Mangalik’s blood and so he had been asked to stay away from the college.

We then, began sloganeering and that’s when the ABVP came out. Among them were their prominent leaders—Satendra Awana, Mehul Parashar, Mahamedha Nagar.

They then began charging at us; the police initially did try stuffing them into their van but it was more like a joke because they came back out just as easily and started jumping on the vans shouting out slogans, like Bharat Mata Ki Jai.

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They were coming at us from all sides. One of my friends fell after being hit by a brick. They used stones, metal tools. They had come prepared; there was nothing spontaneous about their attack. At one point they even threw glass bottles at us. Women were kicked, scratched beaten up. This went on for an hour. Then we began marching but they blocked us at Art Faculty and pushed us against a wall. We finally reached Morris Nagar Thana weher we resolved to file an FIR. There too, they threw eggs and at one point a large rock was thrown. There was no police to our aid. Their rampage went on for a good 3 to 4 hours. We began getting phone calls from our friends at Ramjas who said that the college gates were shut and no one was allowed out, while the Ramjas ABVP mob created sort of hysteria among the students and teachers inside. They were finding people alone and beating them up. They’re cowards, like that for wanting to beat us up.

There were no naaras of Bharat Ke Tukre Tukre karna, or anything like that. In fact, even the footage ABVP as released of Mukul Manglik shouting about meethi azaadi is forged because there is a strong Kashmiri accent to the voice that doesn’t belong to him.

This was not a clash between two student bodies. This was a straight out attack by the ABVP.”

Kanupriya Kaikeya, Alumni, Kirori Mal College

“22nd February 2017 was when I heard about the protests ad ensuing violence. I made frantic calls to friends and spoke to my teachers. The horror stories that emerged were disturbing to say the least.

23rd February 2017, I joined the protests in front of the Delhi Police headquarters at ITO. We assembled at around 11 am in front of Gate no.5 ITO Metro station. By 11:30 there were around 200 of us. Gate no.5 had been shut and we had collected with banners and posters right on front of the empty lot. There were around 200 police officials on duty around us.

It wasn’t organized by left-wing student organizations but had emerged from the common students themselves. There were members of SFi/AISA in attendance, sure, but the majority was comprised of angry students and alumni and disgruntled faculty members as well. There was sloganeering, which began at around 11:45 am. The demands raised were that an FIR be filed against the ABVP workers and that the Delhi Police officials who had been complicit in the campus violence on 22nd should be suspended.

Kanupriya Kaikeya

The session moved on to firsthand account of what the students and teachers faced. How they were brutally attacked, pulled from the vans, scratched, beaten all the while the Delhi Police looked on. Umar Khalid was also present in solidarity with the protesting students.

There was a delegation formed from within the crowd of the students and teachers who were present on 22nd in campus and they went on to speak to Delhi Police. At around 14:30 pm, SBK Singh, Special Commissioner, Delhi Police, came out to hear what we had to say. He said there is no provision in the law to file separate FIR’s and that is why the Police had filed ONE blanket FIR which clubbed ABVP and every protesting student as AISA under one umbrella.

The filed FIR was read out and the police broke in to draft a public notice and complete the proceedings so that the case can be transferred. As of now – The Crime Branch has been handed the case and any student who wishes to give any statement/complaint pertaining to the incident can mail it to dcp.crime@delhipolice.gov.in.The students are also speaking to various lawyers and want to file FIR’s as well as go about it according to the due procedure of law.

A university is a space for dissent and discourse. Just because your politics and ideas differ from mine doesn't mean I'm wrong and you're right or vice versa. Engage. Talk. Protest. But don’t doctor footage or assault innocents to validate your claim.”

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This is the kind of environment we are living in. George Orwell’s 1984 is India’s 2017. Democracy no longer exists; unless it now means, might is right. We still seek hope from the Constitution as being the only document to uphold our human liberties. We are governed by parties that believe in law and order that stems from violent uproars and bloody blows on commoners. Dare speak up or you’ll be hunted down, singled out and defamed in the middle of the streets. Dare utter a word, or you will be threatened to have been cut open by prominent leaders in the middle of police officers in a police station and no one can do anything about it. This is not about the universities. This is not about freedom of speech and expression. This is much bigger, my fellow Indian. This is new-age politics. This is a conspiracy and this is massacre and your hands are either tied or bloody!